Here's a story about a dog we used to own. He was a medium sized, white dog with a poodle type of coat. I don't know what kind of dog he was. My mom named him Muffin. At the time, I was young and didn't realize what a sissy name Muffin was for a dog.

Technically, he was my mom's dog. So, when mom and dad divorced, she took him to Oklahoma with her. She also took my dad's new pickup truck. Muffin rode from Indiana to Oklahoma in the back of the truck. At one point, Muffin grew tired of riding in the truck so he jumped out. Mom was on the interstate. Muffin hung from his leash along side of the truck with his underneath rubbing on the tire. His balls were rubbed completely off and his stomach was open. Mom finally discovered Muffin. She took him to the vet and got him sewed up.

I don't remember why or how, but we ended up with Muffin again in Indiana. I guess Muffin didn't like Enid, OK.

By this time, I was a wee bit older and I realized that Muffin was a sissy name for a dog. So we (me and my 3 brothers) shortened his name to Muff. We were still too young to know that Muff was slang for something else.

Muff suffered his second injury when his tail was broken by the garage door. He was sitting in the door's path. His tail was caught under the door. It kinked his tail at one vertabrae. It wasn't life threatening nor did it in any way adversely affect his ability to be a dog. So we just left it. I think he was probably healed and pain free within a few days.

My dad had a friend by the name of Wimpy. And like all people named Slim, or Tiny, or some other name like that Wimpy wasn't little. Muff hated mufflers. He would bite at mufflers on cars, trucks, motorcycles, he couldn't reach the mufflers on semis, and garden tractors. Wimpy came to visit one day. When Wimpy left that day Muff tried to bite the muffler of the truck. His kinked tail caught in the bumper and he was dragged for a long way before his tail ripped off at the kink.

Now, this injury was not life threatening, but required the skilled hand of surgery to repair. So my dad had me pull his skin back while my dad finished removing the protruding tail bones with a hatchet. We taped it up and Muff healed just fine. He still had a tail but it was about half as long as before. One good thing was that he no longer had a kink in it.

By now I was a little older. I finally found out that Muff was slang for something else. I decided it wasn't very nice to refer to my mom's dog as female genitalia. So we changed his name to Murphy. As it turns out, unless I have something to learn, Murphy was an OK name.

Now I already told you how Murphy hated mufflers. He once tried to bite the muffler on our garden tractor. He helped himself get to the muffler by resting his paw on the belt/pulley assembly of the generator. His paw went round and round on the pulley a few times. Again, he suffered no life threatening injuries. He walked with a limp the rest of his life.

Now many more years went by and Murphy lived without incident until Fred came along. Fred was a Boxer. Fred hated Murphy. Fred kept Murphy hiding in fear under the back porch most of the time. So for Murphy's sake, my brother Daryl took Murphy with him to North Carolina.

Murphy only lived about another year. Fred kept Murphy so in fear that his life beneath the porch really dragged him down. Daryl finally had Murphy put to sleep. I guess Daryl took Murphy to a different vet than Leon saw.

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